1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a system, method and program product for efficiently administering, sharing, and re-using a series of document files which are necessary to proceed with business in an organization such as company. Such documents include business sale records, estimates, technical documents, drawings created by Computer-Aided-Design (CAD), documents recorded with expert knowledge or ideas, and other various business reports.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 8-305724 discloses a document file administrative system capable of administering documents concerning expertized knowledge or ideas directed to design business for re-use and sharing. Specifically, in the above publication, attributes, keywords, summaries of individual documents which have been created from time to time in the course of work are registered in advance as keys for retrieval. Each user who individually use the document file administrative system systematically administrates these keys as a group of individual views, and correlates the group of individual views with a group of common views that are referable among the users in common. Each user can retrieve an arbitrary document data through the group of common views.
In the aforementioned conventional system, each time the user creates a new document, he or she is required to register and systematically administer the attributes, keywords, and summaries as retrieval keys based on the assumption that the document will be used in the future. Creating, registering, and administrating retrieval keys require a highly-skilled technique and a quantitative amount of labor. Further, inputting inappropriate content for the key fails to properly retrieve necessary document data. Therefore, training of the users so that they can properly create, register, and administer the keys is required, which, however, is not easy to practice.
It is an object of the invention to provide a document file administrative system, method and program product which are free from the problems residing in the prior art.
According to an aspect of the invention, a computer-based document file administrative system comprises: a tree edition component for allowing a user to create and edit a tree representing a project on a display, the tree having one or more nodes; a document file edition component for allowing a user to create and edit a document file, and to associate the document file with a node of the tree by an attribute relating to the node, and to store the associated document file in a memory; and a search component for searching out a document file from document files stored in the memory based on a given attribute, and represents the presence of searched out document file in connection with the corresponding node.
According to another aspect of the invention, a document file administrative system comprises: a plurality of client computers each accessible by a user; a server computer containing document files each having an attribute relating to a node constituting a tree for hierarchically classifying the document files in a project; a network connecting the plurality of client computers with the server computer to thereby enable a user to search out a document file by a given attribute.
According to still another aspect of the invention, a method is usable in a networked computer system including a server computer and a plurality of client computers accessible by users to effect a document file administration. The method comprises the steps of: preparing and storing a database containing a plurality of document files in the server computer, the plurality of document files each being attached with an attribute relating to a node constituting a tree for hierarchically classifying document files in a project; searching out a document file by a given attribute; providing a user with the presence of searched out document file in connection with the corresponding node.
According to further aspect of the invention, a program product is executable in a networked computer system including a server computer and a plurality of client computers accessible by users to effect a document file administration. The program product comprises the functions of: preparing and storing a database containing a plurality of document files in the server computer, the plurality of document files each being attached with an attribute relating to a node constituting a tree for hierarchically classifying document files in a project; searching out a document file by a given attribute; providing a user with the presence of searched out document file in connection with the corresponding node.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent upon a reading of the following detailed description and accompanying drawings.